Summer Series I: A Sermon by Haddon Robinson

1:50 An appropriate text would be that after he sang a hymn, they went out. But since the school has paid for my plane ticket, I guess I ought to say something. Delighted to be here. I was thinking this afternoon that there is a charm and grace that people in the southeast have that is in some distinction to the northeast where I happen to live. A friend of mine told me he was in New York a while ago and a man walked up beside him said an obscene word, he said hello.

2:28 It's also nice to be with you because, on the whole, you're preachers, or even worse, you're married to preachers. And so when I've been introduced as the professor of homiletics, you know what that is. For a lot of folks, it sounds like a disease to be cured.

2:51 I was in St. Louis a while ago, and I was introduced as the professor of home economics at the seminary. Ohh.... That really was a bad week. There were two little old ladies in the church that were on my case. I think every preacher needs one little old lady to keep them humble and godly, but two you feel overwhelmed and undermatched by the whole thing. On the way out, one of them said to me one night, he said, Dr. Robinson, I always like to hear you preach. Your last sermon is always better than your next.

3:38 Another one said to me, you're serving such a rich blessing. They're like a cup of cold water to a drowning man. It can be a tough life to be a preacher. Some time ago my father passed away. He was 88 years of age. Last eight years of my father's life he lived with us while we were living in Dallas. But the previous years of his adult life he lived in New York City. We lived in a section of New York called Harlem, an area of Harlem called Mouse Town. It was a neighborhood that Reader's Digest said was the toughest section in the United States.

4:37 In the two years before my father came to visit us, he was beaten up twice by thugs. The first time he was knocked down two flights of stairs and put in the hospital, and the the second time that he was mugged, he developed a hernia. My father did not know what the hernia was, and as it grew more pronounced, being a man of simple, perhaps simplistic faith, he asked God to heal him. But nothing happened. And finally, when he wrote to me to tell me what had occurred, it was obvious that he was deeply upset. In fact, I received his letter in the morning, and by that afternoon I was on a plane to New York, and a day or So later, I brought my father back to Texas, where one of our surgeons operated on him, and the hernia was completely corrected. But somehow my father felt that God had let him down.

5:31 He had prayed for healing, and in his mind, the healing had not come. I tried to assure my dad that the hand of the physician was the hand of God, but the whole thing sounded like theologic to him, and he shrugged it off. And the last eight years of my father's life were not good years. Not only were they a time of declining health, but he went through them with a diminished faith. I think I could handle what happened in my dad's life by attributing it to senility. After all, sometimes when people get older, they lose physical, emotional, maybe even spiritual strength. A few years before that I had read C.S. Lewis's book, A Grief Observed. If you know that book, you know that C.S. Lewis, the brilliant Christian writer, wrote it after the death of his wife, Joy Davidman.

6:32 Joy Davidman had been an atheist, a communist, a Jewess who had come to personal faith in Jesus Christ as a result of C.S. Lewis's writings. And then in order to be close to him, she and her two teenage sons went from the United States to England, where for a time she served as something of his personal secretary. When Lewis and Davidman were married, there doesn't seem to have been much romance in it. As I understand it, they were married in a hospital room when Joy Davidman was dying of cancer. And the reason that Lewis married Joy Davidman was to assure her that if she died, he would be responsible for her two teenage sons. As God would have it, though, there was a remission in the disease. Lewis and Davidman were married a second time in a Church of England ceremony, and they enjoyed several wonderful years together. But then, as suddenly as the disease had stopped, it started again. And after a period of very painful illness, Joy Davidman died.

7:43 And C.S. Lewis, that gifted Christian writer, in order to come to grips with his feelings, wrote his emotions in a series of journals. And those journals became the basis of a grief observed. When the book was first published, it was published under a pseudonym. Lewis was afraid that if people knew how he reacted to this experience of grief that their faith might be shaken in fact it wasn't really published under his name until after his death in 1963 if you have read that book you know that the opening chapters are shrill and harsh Lewis had certain expectations of how God was going to work in his life and when those expectations were not fulfilled, became confused and angry and shaken. And then, as was Lewis's way, he turned from his expectations of God to his experience of God.

8:45 And even though at the end of the book the skies are still leaden and gray, now and then a shaft of hope and light manages to break through. As I thought about those two experiences and a few others liked them, it seemed to me that there was a way in which my father, a very simple Christian, and C.S. Lewis, this brilliant Christian apologist, had one thing in common. Both of them had expectations of how God would work in their lives, and when their expectations were not fulfilled, they found that their faith was badly damaged. And from this, it struck me that to raise religious expectations to too high a level can be a dangerous and a damaging thing to do, because disillusionment is the child of illusion.

9:44 And if we go through life with expectations not fulfilled, we will suffer twice. We can suffer from the slings and arrows that life shoots at us, and during those painful experiences, we may discover that our faith is badly damaged. Dr. Jerome Frank at John Hopkins is fond of talking about our assumptive world. What he means by that is that all of us come into life with certain assumptions, assumptions about ourselves, assumptions about other people assumptions about the way things are, if we're religious assumptions about God and he goes on to argue that insofar as our assumptions about life and reality are true and accurate then we live relatively happy relatively positive, relatively well adjusted lives but insofar as our assumptions are distant from reality and we dabble in magic then often we find ourselves confused because the assumptions don't come through we find ourselves withdrawn and hostile and angry and those of us who are Christians come to life's difficult experiences with all kinds of assumptions we come to those experiences for example with the promises of God in our pocket we hear the psalmist when he says in Psalm 46 that the Lord is our refuge and strength and available help in the time of trouble we hear the words of Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 40 when he said to those people in exile that they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.

11:49 They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. But the question is, when you hear those promises of God, how does God keep his promises? That is, how does God work? How do we work? the answer to that very simple question it seems to me divides all kinds of theologies I have some friends who are strongly Calvinistic as I listen to them at their best or worst they seem to feel that God does everything for them all the world's a stage all the men and women merely players that God maps out the action, plans the dialogue, and we generally just go through our paces.

12:47 Got some other friends at the other end of the spectrum who seem to feel that God doesn't do very much at all. For them, God's sort of the producer of an impromptu play. He gets the characters arranged on the stage, and then he brings up the curtain. he just sort of goes out for coffee and the people on the stage muddle through the best they can and he'll come back to bring down the curtain but in between everything is sort of left up to us. So the question is how does God keep his promises? How does God work? How do we work? Or in the jargon of the theologian how does the transcendent mystery of God break into human affairs.

13:38 And as I have thought about that, it seems to me that there's not one, but there are several ways in which God keeps the promises that he has made to us, his people. One of the ways in which God keeps his promises is what we could call the intervention of God.

13:58 And in this model, what God does is to reach down into a difficult situation and take us out of the situation. Or God reaches down into a bad situation and takes the situation away and he sets us free. It's what we normally think of when we think of a miracle. There's the intervention of God for his people. If I were thinking of a biblical example of that model, it would be from Exodus chapter 14.

14:29 In that episode in Israel's history, The Israelis have left the land of Egypt and then they are confronted with a huge body of water. And Pharaoh and his armies have decided to pursue these people rather than let them go. There are the Israelis, two million of them, caught between Pharaoh and the deep Red Sea. and in that moment of crisis and danger the people in their fear cry out to God in that passage in Exodus 14 Moses stands and says to the people stand still and see the deliverance of your God in that dramatic moment as you well know the sea opened and the people walked across as though the land were completely dry and when the soldiers of Pharaoh decided to follow the waters tumbled in and they were drowned was the dramatic intervention of God on behalf of his people.

15:43 In fact, that event was so significant in the lives of the people of Israel that it ranked for them the way the resurrection of Jesus Christ is for us. Whenever the prophets, whenever the poets wanted to demonstrate that Israel was a special people, they pointed back to that dramatic time when God brought his people out of the womb of Egypt and by dramatic intervention set them free and made them his son.

16:19 If you wanted to find it over in the New Testament, you could find it in Luke chapter 18. Jesus comes to the village of Jericho and there's a man there who has been born blind and he has heard that Jesus has hit town. And so he keeps crying out, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy upon me.

16:42 Jesus hears the man's cry, asks that he be brought to him, and then Jesus says to the man in his quaint way, what would you like me to do for you? And the man says, my sight. I'd like to receive my sight. Jesus says, you have it. Your faith has healed you. No making mud, putting it on the man's eyes, no sending him to an ophthalmologist. Just the words spoken and the man was healed. The dramatic intervention of God. And I think that when you and I think of the way that God will work in our lives when we are going through some very difficult times, The first thing that comes to us is to believe that God will perform a miracle.

17:37 I'm not sure why that becomes the first alternative. It's possible that it goes back to our infancy. We were babies, and we were hungry. We made the appropriate noises, and the big people came and put a bottle in our mouths. or there were times when our diapers were soiled and we made the appropriate cries and there was deliverance from without or if you have grown up in the church you know that the public relations department of the church is always trying to make God look good and so again and again we go over these great stories of miracles in the scripture perhaps that's the reason now don't misunderstand me I don't think it's wrong to expect a miracle in fact I imagine that we could go around this congregation this evening and some of you could tell of times in your life when God dramatically intervened in what seemed like an impossible situation or if it's not happened to you it's happened to someone that you know is a word you can count on.

18:57 Now, it's not wrong to expect a miracle, but it can be dangerous. It can be dangerous if you think that that is the only way God works, or that that is the major way God works. For disillusionment is the child of illusion. if you live with illusions about how God is going to work you may find yourself hurt by life and your faith badly wounded for there are other ways in which God works other ways in which God keeps the promises that he has made to his people not only is there the intervention of God in which God performs a miracle, reaches down, takes us out of a bad situation, takes the situation away.

19:54 But the second way in which God keeps his promises is what we might call the interaction of God. And in that model, God doesn't perform a miracle, but God empowers us to make a difference in a difficult situation. the interaction of God with his people. If I were thinking of a biblical example of that model, it would come from Exodus chapter 4.

20:31 Early in Moses' life, he found himself wanting to see the people of God set free. And he rose up, slew an Egyptian, perhaps hoping that that would incite some kind of revolution but it didn't work and Moses was forced to flee Egypt and go to the backside of the desert of Midian and for 40 years take care of a bunch of sheep somebody said you can tell the life of Moses in three separate episodes the first 40 years when he was in Pharaoh's court the son of Pharaoh he discovered he was somebody the next 40 years they get those lousy sheep he discovered he was nobody then in the last 40 years he discovered what God could do with somebody who realized he was nobody and what must have been Moses' midlife crisis the day as he's taking care of the sheep he sees a bush that's burning and it's not consumed.

21:45 And he has an interview with God. It's almost humorous as you look at it in Exodus chapter 3. Exodus 3, verse 7. God says out of this bush, Moses, I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I'm concerned about their suffering so I've come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians imagine Moses must have thought it's about time we've been here about 400 years I'm sure as God spoke Moses must have thought well now we'll see it I mean, God's going to roll up his sleeves and perform him a miracle.

22:45 And so he says now, verse 9, the cry of the Israelites has reached me. I've seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, Moses, you go. I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt. and in verse 11 Moses said to God in the Hebrew you've got to be kidding I mean, I know those guys. I've been to prep school with them. Not a chance in the world they're going to let two million slaves go free. And God says, Moses, you go, and I will go with you. And you know that episode as it works out in chapter 3 and 4. That's what happened.

23:38 God worked. And the people of Israel worked. And Moses worked. And they became workers together with God. The interaction of God with his people. I wouldn't want to go to the wall for this, but it strikes me that God's pretty limited in this matter of performing miracles.

24:05 I think that if he performed as many miracles as we would like, most of us would be ruined by it. I have some friends who live in a world of miracles. I mean, they have a couple before breakfast, a few more before lunch, a couple in the afternoon. I was downtown, and I prayed for a parking space, and there was a miracle. There was the space. It strikes me that those folks aren't necessarily God's children. They're just God's spoiled brats.

24:40 I think it would be difficult for God to perform all the miracles we'd like. I will go to the wall for this. And that is, there are some things that will not change in a church, in a community, in a world. Unless God works. Unless we work. unless we become workers together with God.

25:03 If you think about the Great Commission as it comes to us from the pen of the tax collector Matthew, you know that it is surrounded by two great affirmations about Jesus Christ. The Savior says that all authority is given unto me in heaven and earth. and it concludes by saying lo I am with you always even to the end of the age a declaration of Christ's power a declaration of Christ's presence but then in between there is the command go ye into the world and make disciples out of all the nations I believe with all of my heart that no woman, no man ever comes to God unless they are drawn first by the Holy Spirit. They also believe with all of my heart that no man or woman will ever get to heaven without a human thumbprint on them.

26:09 Because I do not believe that the world, your community, my area of the country, or the world, is ever going to be evangelized unless God moves. and unless we move, unless we become workers together with God. There are some changes that will not take place unless God and his people move together. The interaction of God with his people.

26:45 But there is still a third way in which God keeps the promises that he has made to his people. Not just the intervention of God, the performing of a miracle, the interaction of God in which he empowers us to make a difference in our situation, but what we might call the inner action of God.

27:10 And in that model, God doesn't perform a miracle. God doesn't give us a special power. In that model, God leaves us exactly where we are and does something significant in our lives. The inner action of God with his people. If I were thinking of a biblical example of that model, it would come from 2 Corinthians chapter 12.

27:41 You know that in that passage, the Apostle Paul talks about his thorn in the skin. We don't know what that thorn was that gave him pain and was constantly irritating. Whenever theologians get together for coffee, that's one of the things they discuss. What do you think the thorn in the flesh was? Some, like Sir William Ramsey, felt that it might have been malaria.

28:09 That disease was rampant in the ancient world, and it's possible that Paul came down with that debilitating sickness. more likely it had to do with bad eyesight you remember when he wrote to his friends in Galatia he said to them you would have if you could plucked your eyes out and given them to me and then later in that letter he says you see with what a large handwriting I have written something that would be true of a person with bad eyesight that wasn't corrected but the fact is we do not know what the thorn in the flesh was. We do know that it bothered Paul. We do know that he says in 2 Corinthians 12 that I went to God three times and I asked him to take it away and God's answer was no.

29:07 He said my grace is sufficient for you. And my strength is made perfect in weakness. God did not perform a miracle for the Apostle Paul. He didn't allow Paul to somehow take that thorn out of the flesh himself.

29:34 He simply left Paul exactly where he was and did something beautiful in his life. the inner action of God with his people. For 10 years, I was the general director of the Christian Medical Dental Society.

29:54 There are 31 of those societies and countries around the world. And because of that, I came to know a man in Canada by the name of Jim Ashman. back in the early 60s Jim went to India as a missionary while he was there he came down with polio he was badly crippled by the disease he was forced to come back to Canada and the disease left him weak and crippled he's been confined to a wheelchair over the years some friends of his have urged him to seek out people who are supposed to have the gift of healing and more for their sake perhaps than his own he went but nothing absolutely nothing took place because he is in medicine he has had available to him the best help of people in Canada in the United States, while they've managed to make them a bit more comfortable, they have done nothing to touch the effects of that disease.

31:10 the kinds of things you and I do without thinking take almost a heroic effort on his part. And when I've gone to see Jim Ashwin, I've always been a little uptight. I think I have in the back of my mind somehow the idea that I've got to explain God's ways with people. I'm not quite sure what to tell this man who went as a missionary and lived his life with polio.

31:43 But you'll have to take my word for this. Whenever I have been with him, I have seen in Jim Ashwin a strength that you do not even see in the Olympic athletes, a way of handling life that speaks of an inner power.

32:12 There is in Jim Ashwin a grace and a graciousness that you seldom see in people who are healthy. He sits there in his wheelchair. God has not performed a miracle for Jim Ashwin. God has not allowed medicine to make a difference in his life. Jim Ashland simply stays there. and God has done something beautiful in his life the inner invention of God in his people A few minutes ago, I quoted to you the words of Isaiah the prophet, having spoken of God's omnipresence and God's omnipotence.

33:13 He's speaking to people who were away from their city and away from their country, and they were in exile, chafing under what was happening to them. and Isaiah says to them at the end of chapter 40 they who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength they shall mount up with wings as eagles they shall run and not be weary they shall walk and not faint some of the literary critics feel that Isaiah has destroyed the poetic structure normally you would think of an ascending order you think of walking and then running and then flying Isaiah has it backwards I think the prophet knew exactly what he was doing I think he was saying to those people that if they waited on the Lord they would renew their strength one of the things that God could do for them is that they could mount up with wings as eagles a dramatic intervention of God which would lift them out of their situation or the interaction of God that they would run and not be weary they would have strength beyond their strength or they would walk and not faint.

34:48 All of those ways are ways in which God keeps his promises. A year ago, I went through what I'm sure is the most difficult experience of my life. I was overwhelmed by it. I lived in fear that I couldn't quench. I lived in pain that I couldn't stop. Without trying to be overdramatic, I despaired even of life sometimes. I would get up in the morning and I didn't expect any miracles. I get up in the morning and ask God to give me strength to make it to noon.

35:53 At noon, I'd ask for strength to make it to the evening. All of the little secrets, the kinds of things that I have preached to others that I think are valid, didn't work. It just seemed like I was overwhelmed. And yet day after day, I would come home in the evening. And I could thank God that I was able to walk. and that falls flat on my face. God keeps the promises that he makes to his people according to his purposes, according to our needs sometimes God enables us to mount up with wings as eagles it's as though he swoops down and lifts us out of difficult situations and enables us to move among the clouds and almost touch the stars, there are those dramatic moments in the Christian experience. Those are the experiences that we write books about. And there are other times in which we run and are not weary. We have a strength beyond our strength. We get the second wind of grace.

37:27 And we're able to do what we never thought we could do. We have an energy that we never knew we had And there are other types. There are other times. which you walk one step at a time, and you don't faint.

37:55 But God won't lie to you. God does keep his promises according to his purposes according to our needs But they who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. Sometimes we mount up with wings as eagles. Other times we run and we are not weary. and other times. Other times we walk. And we don't faint. God keeps his promises. Every one of them, in every way, is valid.

38:57 But God won't lie to you. and you can bet your